Conspiracy Theory of the Day: London's Railings

There was a lot of clanging outside Londonist Towers this morning. We mean, more clanging than usual. And banging. So we went to investigate. Turns out some little men from the council had come to remove all the street railings: our corner today, the other side of the street tomorrow. Now these railings had been installed not six years ago for Health & Safety reasons following a number of appalling accidents where vehicles had mounted the pavement. Intrigued, we asked, nay, grilled the chappies with the pick axes. Who were actually very well-informed for council officials. Health & Safety, they said. Seems it's all to do with the number of appalling accidents involving cyclists being crushed against railings this year. You'd think that TfLwould have worked all this out in advance. Surely the answer is a carefully designed mixture of both? So far so much dithering and wasting of tax payers' money. Not to mention preventable tragedy.

But you know what? We've worked out what's really going on here. Spondulics are a bit tight for 2012, right? Well, during WWII when the government needed extra resources for munitions, the railings of many of London's squares were removed and recycled into, well, other stuff. Obviously today's railings are tomorrow's hurdles. Or javelins. Or bobsleighs. We're on to you, Boris. (Image/steve angelkov)

Guard rail is actually a big issue at TfL - this document says current policy is to remove, dependent upon risk assessment. and every TfL update report these days tend to have a paragraph or two about the number of metres removed.

(whether this is what you saw depends on the road - TfL only have maintenance responsibility for main roads)

Elizabeth W

> the railings of many of London's squares were removed and recycled into, well, other stuff

Are you sure?

I thought they were removed and dumped in large, rusting piles as not being very much use for anything. Except for morale-building, because the now railing-less parks thought they were doing their bit for the war effort.

Gorge

My grandfather was a scrap mettle man with a horce and cart .the storeys we wer told they removed railings and sold to the war effort in victora London they could remove what they wanted and they did the government ok it .